Surprising uses for aspirin
By Allison Ford, Divine Caroline
More from Care2 Green Living blog
In this age of flashy new medicines and cutting-edge medical treatments, it's comforting to find a simple cure that's tried and true. In 400 BCE, the Greek physician Hippocrates described the healing powers of willow bark, which he recommended for easing pain and reducing fevers. It turns out that willow bark's active ingredient, a chemical called salicin, is the foundation of aspirin.
Healers used willow bark to treat pain and inflammation for centuries, and since the 1700s, chemists and doctors used salicylic acid for medicinal purposes, but it had terrible gastrointestinal side effects.
Then, in 1897, a German chemist was searching for a new formulation to help his father's painful rheumatism. By tinkering with the chemical structure of salicylic acid, he ended up with a milder and gentler version. The pharmaceutical company he worked for, Bayer, named the compound aspirin and began marketing its new pill aggressively.
Within just a few years, aspirin was the most prescribed drug in the world. By 1915, aspirin was so ubiquitous that it became available over the counter, and it's been a staple in many medicine cabinets ever since.
What's not well-known is that aspirin does so much more than just relieve pain, reduce fever, and thin blood. Here are five surprising ways it can come in handy:
Aspirin is highly effective at reducing the inflammation caused by bug bites and stings. To ease swelling and itchiness, wet the area and rub an aspirin tablet on the spot.
Cut flowers will last longer if their water includes a crushed-up aspirin tablet.
Because it contains salicylic acid (the same active ingredient found in many anti-acne potions), aspirin also works to reduce the appearance of pimples and other blemishes. Rubbing an aspirin paste on a blemish will help dry it out and get rid of the redness.
If you find that your white T-shirts accumulate yellow deodorant stains in the armpits, aspirin can fix those, too. Crush a few pills, mix them with some warm water, and soak the stains in the solution before washing. The aspirin will make the shirts look as good as new.
Aspirin has also been recommended for reviving dead car batteries, eliminating dandruff, killing fungus spores in the garden, and removing chlorine buildup from the hair of people who swim frequently in pools.
Have you found other uses for aspirin? If so, please share them in the comments below.
Allison Ford is a staff writer for Divine Caroline, where a version of this post originally appeared.
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